Coastal Cleanup

September 19, 2009: Heal the Bay's Costal Cleanup Day

On paper, volunteering for this event seemed like it would be a literal "day at the beach." Living in LA, I go to the beach a couple of times a month, but have never noticed a surplus of litter. Of course there is a smattering of trash, here and there, but nothing that would make a day of volunteer garbage cleanup seem too taxing.

I WAS SO WRONG!!!! Heidi and I chose to help at the Redondo Beach King Harbor (aka the yacht club), basically we were picking up trash off the rock jetty. It was hard, hard work, and extremely disgusting. The amount of litter found superficially, on top the rocks was minimal. But the garbage found in the crevices, under the rocks, in the holes: totally mind blowing! I think I broke a sweat after the first 20 minutes, which was about the time i found myself lying face down on a rock, reaching into a hole for the remains of a cardboard case of Corona.

The most heartbreaking moments came when we would see a piece of garbage: a plastic bag, an empty bottle, a Coke can or the trash remains of a picnic, that was too far out of our reach. I remember an instance where I was crouching in a hole, stretching with all my might for a Gatorade bottle, a Subway bag, fishing line, and a ripped up black garbage bag...but to no avail. I don't think I have ever wanted anything more that I wanted to reach that "treasure". It hurt to know I was so close but had no choice, but to walk away.

Between the two of us, we filled three bags of trash and two bags of recyclables, that's a lot of waste when considering the fact that we were out there for 2 hours along with about 30 other people who also brought in multiple bags of trash/recyclables.

Heal the Bay's Coastal Cleanup Day was an overall success. They had 14,038 volunteers and picked up over 300,000 lbs of trash and recyclables...pretty awesome.

If you are interested in volunteering with Heal the Bay (they have many volunteer opportunities) check them out here: http://www.healthebay.org/